Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC) are present as a rare population of cells in bone marrow, representing 0.001 to 0.01% of the nucleated cells, but they can rapidly grow and expand in culture without losing their stemness. The hMSC, with their attributes of (1) ease of isolation, (2) high expansion potential, (3) genetic stability, (4) reproducible attributes from isolate to isolate, (5) reproducible characteristics, (6) compatibility with tissue engineering principles, have the potential to enhance repair in many damaged tissues.
MSCs and MSC-like cells have now been isolated from various tissues other than the bone marrow which includes adipose tissue, amniotic fluid, periostium and foetal tissues, and show phenotypic heterogeneity. Phenotypically, MSCs express a number of markers, none of which, unfortunately, are specific to MSCs.
Mesenchymal stem cells obtained from human bone marrow (hBMSCs) have been widely studied because of their relative easy access and differentiation potential to the osteogenic, adipogenic and chondrogenic lineages, and other kind of tissues or cells, including hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes and neurons. Their multipotentiality and self-renewal has increased the attention to this stem cell as a self-renewing cell source with applications in regenerative medicine. In addition, their isolation based on the adherence to the culture substrates constitutes a straightforward strategy for elimination of non-mensenchymal lineages, reducing the dependency on complex cell isolation methods which rely on the expression of specific surface markers.
The limitation with bone marrow derived MSC is its small quantity but for clinical application large quantity of MSCs are required. The present disclosure provides method of processing bone marrow derived MSC and their further large scale expansion for clinical application.